MWC's Most Interesting Technologies

A look at some intriguing tech ranging from VR to quantum cryptography.

At this year's Mobile World Congress, we saw the new high-end phones from HTC, LG, and Samsung, some great values in mid-range and low-end phones, and a lot of "5G" demos, even if most of them aren't really 5G yet. (I was intrigued by lots of this technology, and will talk about it in another post.)

But a lot of what stood out for me at Mobile World Congress was a range of new technologies that were on display. Some of these came from the big companies, and some from little firms in corners of the show. Not all of these will succeed, of course, but they do show some important innovations that could impact mobile computing over the next few years.

Here are 10 technologies that I thought were worth thinking about:

Better Virtual Reality

I continue to be impressed by the pace of virtual reality announcements. I've spent a lot of time lately using Samsung Gear VR, its headset powered by Facebook's Oculus technology, with the Galaxy Note 4, so I was interested in the new version of Gear VR aimed at the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. In the announcement, Samsung made a big deal about how the S6 offers 577 pixels per inch, compared with the 515 pixels per inch in the Note 4.

I was able to try out the new version, and indeed, the new version does look noticeably better. Pixels were closer together, although there is still some screen door effect in looking at movies. Otherwise, the system doesn't seem to have changed much, though new content is coming. This still looked pretty good to me, though I can see there is a lot of room for improvement in the future.

Also, HTC tried to take VR one step further with its Vive headset for PCs, powered by Valve's Steam VR. This is more competitive with Oculus's Crescent Bay headset, as both have features such as position tracking so you can move around a room. It requires tethering to a PC, and a place where you can walk around without walking into things, but it looks quite cool.

But perhaps the coolest demo was one Ericsson had in its booth, where attendees could put on an Oculus Rift headset in Barcelona and control a Volvo excavator digging into the ground in Sweden. You can imagine how VR can have lots of applications in the industrial world.

I'm not convinced any VR solution I've seen yet is quite ready for mainstream users, but the technology is moving quite quickly and it's fascinating to watch.

Smart Sensors

Another topic that was everywhere at Mobile World Congress, just as it was at CES, was the Internet of Things, with all sorts of companies talking about plans to put sensors, intelligences, and connectivity in just about every kind of product you think about. A lot of the communications companies were showing products here, particularly with small modules that incorporate radios. One interesting example was Broadcom, which was demonstrating a tiny device that could transmit temperature, pressure, and humidity via BlueTooth.

I had another chance to see Consumer Physics' SCiO hand-held molecular scanner, with which you shine a line onto an object using the device, and then a smartphone application can tell you details about the object, such as how much fat is in cheese, or how much sugar is in a piece of fruit. The company says the product is starting production, though obviously it will take some time for the application to have all the information it will need to make this really useful. But it still looks fun.

Qualcomm's Fingerprint Technology and Zeroth Platform

Qualcomm made most of its news by what it did and did not say about its forthcoming Snapdragon 820 processor, but what stood out for me were a couple of more unusual technologies. It talked a bit about its Zeroth platform, which it described as bringing machine learning and neural networks to mobile processors, rather than relying on cloud services. The demonstrations included automatic scene detection and face recognition in camera applications, and OCR, although I've seen similar things done using other technologies. Another use might be to make the device more intelligent, so it can better handle multiple LTE and Wi-Fi connectivity or simply to provide more personalization and privacy on your phone.

A lot of this seems theoretical today, but the concept is intriguing. Certainly, we've seen how "deep learning," typically on very large cloud-based systems with lots of data, has been quite successful in areas ranging from voice recognition to translation.

More immediately, the company's Snapdragon Sense ID 3D Fingerprint Technology, which Qualcomm said would be in commercial devices in the second half of this year, looks to go beyond current fingerprint technologies by using ultrasonic sound waves. Qualcomm showed how this can capture 3D details about the finger, including sweat pores, ridge endings and flow, and as a result was not bothered by grease, lotion, or condensation. Therefore, it could be more accurate than previous fingerprint reading technologies, and will work through metal, plastic, glass, or sapphire, so it could work in any design. Of course, we'll have to see how well it works in real life.

Quantum Cryptography

I'm not sure how unique it is, but I was certainly intrigued by SK Telecom's quantum cryptography system. The idea here is that traditional AES encryption and similar systems are theoretically vulnerable to an attack where someone steals the encryption key when it is first sent. In a quantum key distribution system, the keys are instead exchanged over a quantum tunnel using photon detectors over dark fiber, so the keys can't be examined without being changed. SK says it can generate secure keys at more than 10 kbps at a distance of 50 kilometers, and then send AES encrypted files over 10 Gbps Ethernet. It's not an approach I was very familiar with, but it sounds interesting.

AOptix Laser Radio

One of the more interesting backhaul solutions I saw came from a company called AOptix. This uses what it calls laser radio technology (LRT) to help extend the connections to mobile base stations. The Intellimax system combines millimeter wave RF with a 3 phase optics solution using infrared frequencies to allow a redundant connection that can deliver a 2 Gbps link up to 8 kilometers. The outputs from both systems are combined to remove errors. This was originally developed for military applications, and now is being targeted at service providers. There are a lot of backhaul solutions, ranging from fiber to pure microwave and millimeter wave solutions, but this seemed like a different approach.

I'm constantly impressed by just how far the storage market has come. SanDisk had a couple of interesting new flash storage solutions at the show, heading by a 200 GB MicroSD card. Last year's highest capacity was 128 GB, so this is a nice step forward. It's impressive to note just how much memory you can put in a phone or a camera these days. I remember the days of 16 MB SD cards; how far we have come.

It didn't get as much attention, but I was also intrigued by the company's 64GB card aimed at video monitoring solutions. All flash systems degrade over time as data is rewritten to the memory, so flash memory cards in video monitoring or dashboard cameras (popular in many parts of the world) have had to be replaced fairly often. This changes things, allowing more write cycles, with the company saying it could handle rewriting up to 10,000 hours of Full HD video recording. It's seems like a good fit for a specific market.

120Hz Mobile Displays

Rival chipmaker MediaTek mostly highlighted its multimedia features, with technology designed to take better pictures and improve how they look on screen. But what stood out to me was its support for 120Hz displays, as opposed to the 60Hz displays we see on virtually all phones today. We've seen the difference a higher refresh rate makes when it comes to TVs  scroll bars with text on the bottom are more clear, and the action seems more smooth (at least to those with good eyes), but on the phone, I think this may make more of a difference: certainly in the demos, scrolling through a page just seemed more smooth with the new technology.

Wireless Charging

There was a lot of activity on the charging front, with Samsung promising to support both the Wireless Power Consortium's Qi standard (which has been out for a while, and is already built-into a number of phones, including many of the Lumia models), and the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP)'s Rezance standard. The chargers Samsung showed were based on Qi, and they seemed to work quite well.

Speaking about charging, I continue to like the idea of solar charging being built directly into phones, as shown by Sunpower. The company's Wysips Crystal display is now integrated into phones from Kyocera and Alcatel OneTouch, and it hopes to see these included in shipping phones over the coming year.

The idea isn't that solar power can replace plugging in the phone for most people. (After all, most of our phones spend a lot of time in the darkness of pockets or purses.) But it can provide additional power during the day, and perhaps be useful in outdoor situations.

Connectivity anywhere

Inmarsat was showing its IsatHub mobile satellite services, along with a satellite receiver Wideye iSavi terminal from AddValue Technologies that can connect you to the Internet from almost anywhere on the planet using three orbiting satellites. The satellite receiver terminal, about the size of a large paperback book, connects to one of the satellites, which allows it to receive data at 384 kbps and send at 240 kbps. Individual phones or other devices connect to the terminal via Wi-Fi, and then can connect.

Now this doesn't compare with 4G or even 3G service where it's available, and it's certainly going to be more expensive than your typical cellular service, but the idea is that it allows you to connect in places where otherwise you'd have no connectivity.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
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